[gorbypark]

Looking into it further, it seems booking.com is only "sort of European". Booking.com (headquartered in Amsterdam) is actually owned by Booking Holdings (an American company), which seems to have originated as Priceline, which then bought booking.com and renamed/restructured itself into Booking Holdings and owns Priceline, kayak, booking.com, Agoda and a bunch of other airline/hotel aggregators.

[Rinzler89]

That goes for a lot of companies operating out of NL though.

They're there mostly for tax and stock issuing reason, but tend to be majority owned and managed by some US VC/PE/investment group or other kinds of foreign entities who need a EU HQ.

It's what makes the NL jobs (and housing) market so hot.

[gorbypark]

I think in this case booking.com was founded in Amsterdam and were purchased by an American company at some point and they aren't there just for tax reasons. I guess it is possible it is the reason they stay there, though!

[moi2388]

No this happens a lot. The only reason is tax benefits. They do need an office with alike 10 employees and a flower in it though (to ensure there are actually people there lol), but that’s about it.

So they either stay in NL, or do some sandwich with London or Dublin. It helps that the main Dutch party VVD is completely corrupt and only in there to enrich themselves.

[Rinzler89]

>the main Dutch party VVD is completely corrupt and only in there to enrich themselves

I dunno what your yardstick is in NL, but everywhere else I lived and have friends, every major political party is there only to enrich themselves and their lobbyists, and not to aid the people voting for them.

Canada, Portugal, France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, you name it, same shit everywhere: privatize the winnings socialize the losses, while praising the GPD went up 0,2% while your salary staid the same and housing went up 10%.

[moi2388]

Well in NL there is a socialist party, they all only get minimum wage and pay back everything else to the party, but they of course are too idealistic and not very pragmatic so people don’t vote for them.

Most parties have some corruption, but on general try to also help the country. Just not the VVD

[gorbypark]

Can't speak for their corporate structure, but according to this blog post about their new campus, they have 6,500 employees in Amsterdam alone. https://news.booking.com/bookingcom-officially-opens-new-cam....

[sberder]

In this case, booking.com was indeed a company founded in the Netherlands.

[xescure]

It was not founded in Amsterdam, but rather in Enschede by a student at the University of Twente.